Green Vegetables Fight Blindness

People who regularly eat leafy green vegetables greatly reduce their risk of developing a form of blindness that affects millions of elderly citizens.

Johanna Seddon, author of the study and professor of ophthalmology at the Harvard Medical School, said eating a half-cut of spinach once a week is enough to provide protection against age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a form of blindness.

The macula, found in the center of the retina, enables people to see fine detail. when the macula is damaged, a person can be severely disabled, unable to read, write and drive a car.

At present, there is no known way to prevent AMD, and relatively few can be helped with laser treatments. Seddon who compared the diets of 356 people with advanced AMD with the diets of 520 without the disease, found out that spinach, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, parsely, dill and broccoli provide protection against AMD.